Beach booze ban numbers

Number of alcohol-related arrests and citations in July 2008 at Mission Bay and Pacific and Mission beaches.

485

Number of alcohol-related cases at those same areas in July 2010.

$250

Fine for the first offense of the city of San Diego’s beach alcohol ban.

San Diego  Fewer people have been cited for drinking alcohol on San Diego’s beaches this summer. Why?

The unseasonably cool weather has kept visitor counts low. This July, for example, was the coolest since July 1933.

San Diego lifeguards and police also believe that beachgoers are complying more with the city’s beach-booze ban, now in its third year.

The drop in alcohol-related arrests and citations has been stark at Mission Bay and Pacific and Mission beaches.

In July 2008, the combined total was 758 cases. This past July, the figure was 485. That’s a 36 percent drop.

“I think in that first year police were trying to make a point,” Steve Cruickshank, 26, a Pacific Beach resident, said on a recent Friday afternoon. “I do miss having a beer, but I don’t miss the fights and craziness that came with the drinking.”

The scene on this afternoon was mellow. People were drinking, but it was Diet Pepsi, water, Gatorade …

Meanwhile, it looked like a beer commercial was being filmed on the deck of the nearby Lahaina Beach House bar. The place was packed.

Carl Peterson used to drink a few beers on the sand, but these days, he’s content with soda.

“No, I don’t really miss” the alcohol, said Peterson, 41.

He’s an employee with H2O Audio, the maker of waterproof sport headphones, which has an office not far from Pacific Beach. When he and his colleagues hit the beach after a long day at work, they don’t bring booze because the fine for the first offense is $250.

Mike Sick, 55, said a minority of unruly, drunken people ruined it for everyone at the beaches.

The ban came about because of a melee that broke out at Pacific Beach on Labor Day 2007. The City Council instituted a temporary ban, and then voters narrowly approved a permanent one in November 2008.

Sick, a Carmel Valley resident, figures that beach drinking hasn’t been completely eradicated. Some people have figured out ways to beat the ban, he believes, and that might be another reason for the drop in citations.

“If you’re going to drink on the beach, you now have had two years of practice to do it discreetly,” Sick joked.

Police officers, who drive ATVs up and down the beach, certainly weren’t lax in March and April. The number of citations and arrests went up during those two months. The rest of 2010, though, has seen a decline compared with the same period last year.

San Diego Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who pushed for the ban, isn’t surprised that most of the numbers are trending downward.

“People who used to come looking for trouble aren’t coming anymore,” he said. “The word is out.”

Robert Rynearson, director of FreePB.org, which has fought the booze ban, figures that many people originally didn’t know about the ordinance and ended up getting cited. “A lot of tourists, they’d be conspicuous. They probably had no idea,” he said.

Rynearson also wonders whether the citations tally has fallen because beach attendance is down due to the weather and the ban itself.

In July 2009, more than 5 million people visited San Diego beaches, according to the city’s lifeguard service. This year, the total was 3.3 million.

The crowd estimate for August, which has seen more seasonable weather, wasn’t available yet. Same with the alcohol-related citations count for that month.

The number of officers patrolling Pacific and Mission beaches has not decreased, said Lt. Jerry Mills of the Northern Division, which oversees those areas. There’s also been no change in enforcement policy, he said.

He agrees that weather has played a big role. But there’s been a learning curve with the ban, too, he said. People who come to the beach only a few times each summer have remembered that drinking is no longer tolerated.